count files and folders with diff and dolphin

canerandagio

6/24/24, 8:26 AM

I used rsync to make a backup of home folder excluding .* folders

rsync -avz --exclude '.*' /home/andrea/ /media/andrea/maxtor-Est1000/

I checked with dolphin and diff to see if everything from the home to the external disk had been copied and the data is conflicting.

According to dolphin the source home folder has more files and folders than the backup on the external drive, according to diff everything is fine, the folders are identical.

It is clear that in checking the count on the home I excluded the .* folders and files

Now I wonder, who should I trust? Should I trust diff or dolphin?

Thanks

0 + 6

dolphin

rsync

diff

Marco

6/24/24, 8:39 AM

Why not trust `rsync` ? Depending on the option you use with `rsync` you can run `rsync` over and over again till there is no change anymore. Can you add the exact rsync command in the question?

guiverc

6/24/24, 11:30 AM

You excluded directories/files, and then wonder why the destination has fewer directories/files?? As we don't know, and can't see what is on your system, how are we to know? Your explanation explains your result as I see it.

canerandagio

6/24/24, 1:06 PM

@Marco This is my first time using rsync, and I wanted to check if everything went well

canerandagio

6/24/24, 1:07 PM

@guiverc it is clear that I have excluded those files and folders from the count, however I have now specified it

Marco

6/24/24, 3:37 PM

I would use `--exclude '.??*'` to make sure it does not exclude "." and "..". But I guess, rsync is clever enough.

Marco

6/24/24, 3:41 PM

Besides this, it depends on the filesystem. At least the metadata (permissions, user, xattr) could be different. e.g. copy from ext4 to vfat will remove nearly all metadata. To be sure to have the metadata correct, better use `tar` with the right options.

Elon Musk

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EN: count files and folders with diff and dolphin

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